Do you remember what it was like before you were born? No? That’s the point. We are forever aborning. Each moment a new incarnation, and in each moment the original conviction is arrived at again. Yet for all our convictions we are still constantly aborning.

Today’s topic is entitlement. It’s a complicated topic that many people have mixed feelings about, either feeling that the world owes them something or like they are undeserving of anything. Neither of which are functional beliefs, nor are they in any way true.

Sometimes oddly both at the same time. People do get ambivalent also. Ambivalent is ambi-valent, two or more faces. But the world only recognizes one face. The one it gave you. That face is as the birds of the air or the beasts of the field. Do any animals seem to worry about what they deserve or don’t deserve?

Not at all. This is natural. They wouldn’t survive if they did.

Small babies as well, I think. Infant humans don’t worry about it either, but they can learn to.

Cats do.How do cats worry about what they deserve?My cat seems to feel a lack of quietness. Ah, animals are aware of lack, but that is not the same as deserving.

All animals, including humans, are instinctively aware of being unsupported and the instinct is to move on. Humanity entertains the idea that they cannot move to a new place when their needs are not being met. They have substituted obligations for relationships. Everyone familiar with herd behaviour in animals? In herds, they move as a group. They feed as a group. They even defend themselves as a group. But this has nothing to do with obligation. They don’t do it because they are “supposed to”.

Is there not a part of the brain in herding and flocking that sort of keeps everyone in sync? There is indeed. It’s a function of the lymbic system in the brain, and it tells us that our needs are being met if we are in our group.

You see it in birds when they all fly in the same direction. If one changes, they all change. It’s pretty amazing.Birds have a very simple lymbic like brain, and if their brains can be that complex how much more complicated is our own? When herds or flocks are separated, they allow the split. They don’t attack the group that split off, nor do they refuse to allow it to return. But is that the same in humans?

Humanity does not allow for adaptation. Humanity does not recognize the primacy of relationship over role. There are even role reversals in groups of animals we consider very scary, wolves and such. If the alpha of a wolf pack can’t allow role reversal then they won’t form a pack at all, and will instead go rogue. Very likely starve because they don’t hunt nearly as well solo as they do in packs. But do humans allow role reversal? In animals, it’s what inspires trust in the alpha. In humans, it’s supposedly why our leaders have legitimate authority, because they supposedly serve the people.

The good natural leaders do, but they are very few. I do like bosses that are willing to work with their staff and not just order them around. This isn’t just a human liking. It’s a necessity of life. All species want it.

Whenever we feel envy would you say that is rooted in our own sense of entitlement? Actually, envy is rooted in your own sense of doubt. It’s a perversion of the natural instinct to establish a pecking order among species.